


DeLeon

by BorderSpam



Series: Twins Prompts [1]
Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Amputation, Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Canon-Typical Violence, Dismemberment, Gen, Gore, Night Terrors, Nightmares, Self Harm, Troy Calypso's very bad night
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-23
Updated: 2019-10-23
Packaged: 2020-12-31 18:29:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,234
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21150233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BorderSpam/pseuds/BorderSpam
Summary: “Youcan'thurt me.. you know that, r-right?” DeLeon whispers through the vice grip on his throat, hand still relaxed against the arm’s panelling, expression still calm and eyes gentle as he stares down at the panting, trembling mess holding him aloft.“But I can hurt you. Over and over, and over.. every time you close your eyes.”“B-because deep down you know what I was. I washappy.”“…I wasloved.”A moment of silence passes, then the rage takes over. Troyroars,and DeLeonlaughs.





	DeLeon

**Author's Note:**

> Major Gore warning for this one, and Lazulizard has worked on some incredible illustrations which I can't recommend you check out more if you enjoyed the fic - https://lazulizard.tumblr.com/post/188544399143/link

  
“Piece of shit, _piece of shit_, **AHH-fuck!!**”

Troy rips his hand out of the under the pinching joint of his prosthetic where he’s been failing to try and disengage it for the last few minutes, then screams in frustration as he smashes the brutal weight of the arm across his workdesk in a wide sweep.

The satisfaction of _destroying_ half of the projects he’s been working on this month in a couple of seconds doesn’t put a dent in how fucking _exhausted he is_.

He’s so tired, he’s just so tired, shoulders hunched above his bowed head as he leans his weight on the arm, feeling the now cracked surface of the table shift under him slightly with each panting breath.

Today had been painfully -rough-, and Tyreen hadn’t given him an inch, focusing her displeasure at the COV’s acquisition department’s failed _hostile merger_ with that unexpectedly well armed fuel outpost on _him,_ after husking half of the division of course.

He’d taken the brunt of her foul mood as usual, and the workload in fixing this fuckup he wasn’t even responsible for tomorrow was giving him a headache just trying to think of where he would need to get started, and he’s just so.. _fucking.. tired._

He rubs harshly at his face as he turns and begins to stumble towards the mess of heaped blankets and pillows that was his bed, the arm would wait, he’d just leave it and try to sleep for now. If he didn’t try and get a couple of hours in he wouldn’t be able to function tomorrow enough to make a dent in this clusterfuck. He’s so tired.. it won’t matter. He’ll just pass out even with the dead weight of it digging into his shoulder, he knows from _experience_.

Soon as his shin hits the edge of the mattress he feels his eyes flutter closed, barely managing to lift his torso onto the bed and crawl into the center before his body gives out and he flops down onto his chest. His stupidly long prosthetic arm is bent at an awkward angle, the jagged elbow pointing towards the ceiling and wrist pinned uncomfortably under his hip, but he doesn’t have the energy to _move_ the goddamn thing right now, and his breathing evens out within seconds of his face hitting the pillow.

Warm, encompassing, heavy _sleep_. The kind of sleep that feels like sinking underwater, like the soft pressure of your mother’s arms around your small body. The kind of sleep that makes it _hard to wake up_, and Troy struggles to push his mind out of the fog as he finds himself somewhere dark, and quiet, and _wrong_.

* * *

Nothing, all around him. _Nothing_, no sound, no light, and yet he can see his hands perfectly. No ground or walls or _air_, nothing, and the hairs on the back of his neck raise as some horrible realisation begins to dawn. Some memory he can’t grasp, slipping through his fingers like oil. Something bad happens when he’s here, but he can’t remember what.

He can’t.. _move_. He can move his legs but each step does nothing, there’s _nothing_ to walk on, and his heart is starting to pick up pace, a lump in his throat getting hard to swallow. He doesn’t want to be here but he can’t remember **why**.

There’s.. there’s something behind him, he can feel it, but he can’t _turn_ no matter how hard he whips around, he can’t see behind him. What is it.. what is it he can _sense it_ he..

“Troy….”

His pulse _spikes_. He can feel his spine turn rigid, lungs filling to the point of pain as the fear forces a deep shuddering breath into them. He knows that voice. He _knows_ that voice and now he remembers why he fucking hates this place. Why he doesn’t want to be here, not again. Not again, _not again, not again, not **him.**_ Not that gaunt shape he catches in the corner of his eye in every fucking reflection he passes, not that lingering, mocking, _pitying laugh_ he hears in the back of his brain every time the silence settles in after the adoration of his worshippers fades for the night. Not again, not this, not here, not him, not **again**.

“.. Just look at you Troy. So little of you _left_ now. What have you done t-to me.”

_Fucking… DeLeon.._

He smells him before he can see him. Every whistling, panicked breath through his nose is filled with the scent of memories that turn his stomach.

_Warm morning sunlight evaporating dew from fern leaves, the engine oil that always covered Dad’s pants, that fragrant Nekrotafeyan wood they’d burn each night at the campfire, Mom’s skin, dried blood under his fingernails, Ty’s breath when she would curl against his side to sleep in their tiny bed, fever sweat and vomit, and he can’t stop breathing it in, it’s all around him and he can’t stop **remembering**._

“You let her down again today, didn’t you. Guess that’s nothing to be surprised by anymore, is it b-big man? Ahaha.. It’s _normal_ now, huh?”

His jaw is clamped so tight he can feel the implanted roots of his metal canines burning in his skull cavity with the pressure. DeLeon steps closer behind him.

“Wonder how that happened.. wonder how you went from b-being her best friend, her _other half_, her _right hand_… to well, whatever the hell you _are_ now. A monster, m-maybe?”

His prosthetic violently shakes at his side with each shuddering breath and he feels a shooting, burning pain down his left arm as it does. DeLeon is in the edge of his vision now, the red glow of the markings around his eye the only colour in this _fucking place_.

_“… A.. **freak**..?”_ DeLeon whispers in his right ear in that soft, stammering voice, mocking in his apologetic tone. Troy _snaps_.

He lashes out on reflex without turning. Huge mechanical arm striking raptor quick to his right, fingers instantly closing around that delicate neck, and he _lifts_.

He weighs -nothing-, Troy realises as DeLeon’s boots clear the ground and he chokes out a gasp against the machine’s grip. A jolt of pain burns through Troy’s abdomen and he tries to make sense of what’s happening, what he’s remembering.

His heart feels like it’s going to burst out of his chest and cold sweat drips down his back while DeLeon doesn’t even try to struggle, just watches him with those _pathetic sad eyes_ and rests his hand gently on the steel of the monstrous arm’s plating, his red Siren markings a harsh contrast against the black metal. Troy’s eyes shift rapidly, trying to focus on anything but the patronising smile playing across the other’s lips.

Had he.. always been this light? Was it just that he didn’t have the prosthetic yet and only had the one arm... or was this really how little he had weighed before.. before he started trying to change, before he became the God King. Was this how little muscle he’d carried when they landed on Pandora, when the bandits would laugh to his face about how _broken he looked_.

“_SHUT UP_” Troy barks, screwing his eyes shut and shaking his head violently to try and clear the intrusive memories tearing through his brain.

“Shut.. _up_. I’m not a freak. _You_ were the freak, remember? Remember what Dad said? You were the joke, I’m _Troy Calypso_. I’m a **God**. What were you but a _fucking FAILURE_?”

He tightens his fist again and feels a pop, something in the frail man’s throat has just shifted but he doesn’t react, he doesn’t try to scratch at the fingers crushing his windpipe, just smiles down at him, calm and unphased.

“You can’t _hurt_ me.. you know that, r-right?” DeLeon whispers through the vice grip on his throat, only hand still relaxed against the arm’s panelling, expression still calm and eyes gentle as he stares down at the panting trembling mess holding him aloft.

“But I can hurt _you_. Over and over, and over.. every time you close your eyes.”

“B-because deep down you know what I was. I was _happy_.”

“…I was _loved_.”

A moment of silence passes, then the rage takes over. Troy _roars_, and DeLeon _laughs_.

He _laughs_ as Troy releases his throat and lets him drop, he laughs as that viper quick prosthetic catches his forearm and yanks him to his feet before he fully fell to the ground, he _laughs_ as Troys flesh fist smashes into his face and knocks him onto his back, lip splitting and cheekbone shattering under the impact.

He _laughs_ as the the vicious grip on his arm pulls him forward, the only thing holding him upright as Troy spits into his eyes and slams a boot into DeLeon’s chest, shoulder beginning to strain under the power of the mechanical limb pulling it forward while his torso is pinned back.

He _laughs_ at the **God** beating him to death and Troy has never hated anything as much as he _hates_ this frail excuse for a man in his grasp. He hates that this man is underweight, he hates that he is weak, that he is flesh and smooth skin and gentle soulful eyes, that he is that scruffy fucking jacket his father gave him with the arm pinned to empty shoulder, that he is delicate bruised cheekbones and struggling lungs. He _hates_ that this man is regret and spite and the lingering reminder of what it was like to be cared for out of _choice_ and not _fear_.

All Troy can see is red, the red of DeLeon’s _pointless, broken Siren Markings_, the red that his eyes now glow, the red that spits over his lips as he _laughs_ and _laughs_.

“STOP. FUCKING. LAUGHING” he hisses between clenched teeth, feeling his grip on the arm tighten harder, harder than he should, hard enough to feel muscle shift slightly from bone, but he can’t let go. Not while he’s being mocked like this, by _him_.

DeLeon doesn’t stop that gentle laugh, pity and condescension dripping from it, soft eyes still locked with Troy’s, and he doesn’t even flinch as Troy’s hate takes control, as the pressure of the metal fist’s grip increases and pushes the thumb through his forearm’s skin and into the meat underneath. As Troy presses his boot harder into his sternum and starts to _pull_.

“STOP - LAUGHING - AT - **ME**”

Troy screams, yanking his arm back further with each pause as he leans down _hard_ on the creaking ribs under his boot, another burst of pain across his left shoulder ignored as his hearing hyperfixates on the _wet pops_ that preface the _crack_ of the ruined elbow joint as it gives out under the strain, the fleshy tear as it separates from DeLeon’s upper arm, only releasing his grip when he feels the resistance against his foot lessen as the forearm in his fist detaches fully.

He stumbles back a step, breathing heavily as he takes in the wreck of the man in front of him and swallows a wave of bile as he feels blood spatters trickle down his cheek.

DeLeon sits barely upright as his narrow chest heaves for air, blood smeared across his face and torn torso where the brutal prosthetic's jagged edges had caught his skin.

The remains of his mangled arm lay pathetically in front of him, lifeblood pumping from torn arteries and pooling underneath him, and still.. he smiles. Still, he looks at Troy like Troy is nothing, like Troy is a stupid pathetic child throwing a tantrum, like he isn’t afraid, like he _pities_ the shivering, sweating God he’s _defeated while being torn apart_.

He’d won. He _always won_, every time. He’d won before Troy even realised he was there, he’d won with nothing but razor barbed words, and he’d win again, and again, and again.

“All d-done then?” he wheezes, blood red eyes locked onto Troy’s icy blue.

“H-hah ha….. who’s the _freak_ _now_?”

* * *

Troy can’t breath.

He can’t physically breath his chest is.. wrong.. it’s burning like it’s being stabbed and he -

\- Wakes up screaming.

He kicks in complete panic at the blankets that have wrapped around his legs, gasps in shock and claws at the fingers of his mechanical right hand that are currently _digging into the skin of his pectoral_.

He scrambles to sit up against the backboard and forces himself to breath as slowly and deeply as he can, shaking uncontrollably as he tries to calm himself enough to regain control of his right arm and _pry the sharp digits out of his chest._

There is blood everywhere, his torso, his shoulder, long open scratches across his stomach and ribs, _tears_ down the Siren markings in his arm, and he winces between pants as he slowly manages to loosen the death grip his fingers have on his pec and ease them out of the punctures left underneath.

He did this to himself. It’s not the first time.. he should have removed the goddamn prosthetic, he should have not been such a lazy, good for nothing piece of shit and just..

He slowly raises his injured arm and drapes it across his eyes as he tenderly sinks onto his back again, tears starting to burn the open scratches along it.

“_You always.. fucking win._”

** [Link to @lazulizard‘s fuckin astounding art for this fic](https://lazulizard.tumblr.com/private/188544399143/tumblr_nmDvAB59jkrLc13Iz) **


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